Firstly, I am unsure as to where to post this, so please move if you need to.

A question on trust -

When we trust people, who know we trust them - and they let us down (knowingly), who is at fault - us, because we were silly enough to trust them? or them, for not being trustworthy?

Right now I'm feeling more than a little let down and I find myself being a little angry at them - and then even more angry at myself. (When I say angry, I guess I mean disappointed more than anything - not anger in a "oh I'm so going to get you back" way!)

and yes, I'll get over it....

The essence of a real practice is to bring our intellectual understanding to the level of our heart - so as to feel it - to live it!

Everyone makes mistakes, even those we trust. If they broke a trust that you really find is harmful to you, then moving away from them could help as can forgiving. This, being a karmic situation, is a learning lesson, and as my teacher said, never be angry with those who are instruments of your karma. I don't find this to be easy, but what it does for me is help me to see it as a lesson and that in itself takes away much of the anger. You seem well on your way.

DharmaKitty wrote:When we trust people, who know we trust them - and they let us down (knowingly), who is at fault - us, because we were silly enough to trust them? or them, for not being trustworthy?

If I trust people, who know I trust them - and they let me down (knowingly), then I am at fault if I expect(ed) to get anything from them. The right attitute towards everybody actually is love and compassion and not expecting anything from anybody. This is right practice.

If you're never let down by misplaced trust, then you're never actually trusting anybody. You're just creating something like business relationships with people, where both of you cannot break the others' trust because of something the other wants; it's like blackmail. Learning how and when to trust isn't easy. It comes with wisdom. The most important thing is to command respect. Some people command respect through love (through being such as a wonderful person that others would feel too guilty to hurt you), while others command respect through fear (through being such a violent person that others would be refuse to violate your trust, for fear of retaliation). In my experience, especially among the youth, more people have trust and respect based on fear of eachother than love. This isn't good, but it's how the world is. To deal with it, you either have to become a Klingon like them or become a recluse until you find people whom you can trust and respect based on love.

DharmaKitty wrote:us, because we were silly enough to trust them? or them, for not being trustworthy?

any problem we have with others is utterly just our own problem. so we have to change ourselves

that they may be untrustworthy and immoral is a different issue and can be tackled separately, once our own mind is at peace from having removed all our problems being at peace is a sort of difficult thing to reach, since its so sophisticated and requires so much mental energy to reach/sustain